Literary Emotions in Motion: A Soft Robotics Installation for Tactile Storytelling
For artists and HCI researchers, this work demonstrates a novel application of soft robotics for tactile storytelling, but the results are preliminary with a small user study.
This work presents a soft robotic installation that maps semantic emotions from narrative text into variable stiffness of pneumatic actuators, with a user study showing that stiffness modulation combined with color change supports emotionally engaging tactile interaction.
Soft robotics is increasingly explored in artistic contexts, where tactile interaction provides audiences with embodied engagement beyond visual or auditory signals. This work presents an interactive installation that maps semantic emotion analysis of narrative text into variable stiffness of soft pneumatic modules. A natural language model identifies two dominant emotions from a predefined set of six, driving the inflation of seven hexagonally arranged soft actuators. The central actuator represents the primary emotion, while the surrounding ones express the secondary. We develop and mechanically characterize silicone actuators, called soft modules, featuring a thin membrane layer, demonstrating how this morphological control expands the achievable stiffness range while preserving simplicity and low-cost fabrication. A user study with ten participants further evaluates how multisensory coupling of stiffness and LEDs intensity influences emotional perception. The results suggest that stiffness modulation accompanied by color change can support emotionally meaningful and engaging tactile interaction in soft robotic installations.